(Original post by Snufkin)
Bit behind the times Theresa, we've known this for years.

With so many countries sweeping it under the rug it's important to keep talking about it, especially as their campaign gains speed. I mean, there's an argument that our brexit is effectively part of Russia's divide-and-conquer strategy...

(Original post by AmeliaLost)
With so many countries sweeping it under the rug it's important to keep talking about it, especially as their campaign gains speed. I mean, there's an argument that our brexit is effectively part of Russia's divide-and-conquer strategy...

Did anyone notice that Putin looks like Voldemort from Harry Potter? This cannot be a coincidence.

The Russians aren't stupid - they know they can use the Western media to their own end in attacking Western governments. The West cannot effectively respond seeing as Russian media is strictly controlled in comparison.
It's certainly not in Russia's interest to have a strong, united NATO on its border so spreading seeds of discontent to weaken NATO members certainly makes sense. The Soviets commonly incorporated "maskirovka" into their plans & the current Russian government seems to follow a similar line of thinking.

Disinformation, fake news, regime change, the creation of energy crisis, cyber warfare and hybrid conflicts have all been used by the Putin administration since his return as President. The reality is that Russians seem to have set up their doctrine purely to defeat the NATO alliance while the West also has the Middle East and to a lesser extent, China to worry about.
Seeing as NATO has slowly but surely spread East since the end of the Cold War, it's easy to understand why the Russians feel so threatened - the USA for example would certainly never tolerate a Russian influenced Mexico on its border - even if the West has absolutely no desire to fight any kind of war with Moscow.

Russians behind Trump. Not the failure of the Democrats and Republicans!
Russians behind Brexit. Not the failure of our recent governments and EU!
Russians behind the rise of the nationalists in Europe. Not the migrant crisis!
Russians behind the Tories' shambles of a government. Not, uh, the Tories.
Russians behind Corbyn! Behind Sanders! Behind BLM! Behind UKIP! Behind the financial crisis! Behind the rise of ISIS and the refugee crisis! Oh wait - we did that...

You aren't too dissimilar from the people who talk about a Jewish conspiracy. The Kremlin is nowhere near as powerful as your obviously think it is. Russia is a poor backwater with a lower GDP than us, and far more societal problems. If even Russia is capable of such a successful campaign, I dread to think what the UK and USA - who wrote the book on psy-ops and undermining other regimes during the Cold War - are capable of.

Completely agree. Anything that left-wing people dislike seems to be blamed on the Russians even though there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim. Quite hilarious tbh that the media is telling us Russia controls what happens in our democracies.

May is actually right this time, Russia has been interfering in Western elections, they tried to hack the US elections, they spread fake news and hack institutions of European countries. This is a fight for liberal democracy against the authoritarian barbarians. Russia is a threat and finally a Western leader is stating it clearly.

(Original post by usualsuspects)
May is actually right this time, Russia has been interfering in Western elections, they tried to hack the US elections, they spread fake news and hack institutions of European countries. This is a fight for liberal democracy against the authoritarian barbarians. Russia is a threat and finally a Western leader is stating it clearly.

(Original post by FriendlyPenguin)
Damn Russians are everywhere! It is the Cold War again! The Reds at it again!

Russians behind Trump. Not the corrupt Democrats favouring Hillary above Sanders! Not the rise in racial tensions since the Obama administration! Not the failure of the Republicans to put forwards a better candidate (trust me, out of that lot, Trump was the least ****)!
Russians behind Brexit. Not mass immigration and the broken immigration promises! Not terrorism and refugees!
Russians behind the rise of the nationalists in Europe. Not totally-not-islamic terrorism and the refugee crisis!
Russians behind the Tories' shambles of a government. Not, uh, the Tories.
Russians behind Corbyn! Behind Sanders! Behind BLM! Behind UKIP! Behind the financial crisis! Behind the rise of ISIS and the refugee crisis! Oh wait - we did that...

You aren't too dissimilar from the people who talk about a Jewish conspiracy. The Kremlin is nowhere near as powerful as your obviously think it is. Russia is a poor backwater with a lower GDP than us, and far more societal problems.

If even Russia is capable of such a successful campaign - and I agree they probably are involved in a lot of things listed above, but nowhere near the main reason - I dread to think what the UK and USA - who wrote the book on psy-ops and undermining other regimes during the Cold War - are capable of. Or are we too busy ****ing with our own populations and the Middle East to counter the Russians?

Is it just me who thinks this all smells of the rankest hypocrisy? The UK/USA have a long and ignoble history of fiddling elections around the world not to mention numerous claims from Russia in the past of American under handed actions in their electoral system.

I'm surprised people doubt that Russia would try to manipulate other countries.

Come on, its sodding president spent his formative years working for an organisation that excelled at manipulation and disinformation. That includes almost 30 years spent running rings around the British government.